I resent my brother's happiness

I grew up with this idea of " Perfect People." I don't know when it started, and it is probably something I could unmask in therapy if I could afford to go, but this concept comes back to haunt me from time to time.

I remember crying to my mom as an elementary school kid about how I felt like I didn't fit anywhere, how the other kids around me were great at sports, pretty, and made friends so easily. My mom would assure me that those kids would grow up and not be that perfect page-turner I had created in my mind and that I would grow beyond the limitations I had set for myself. Fifteen years later, all that may be true, but my leading example of that "Perfect Person" happens to be my brother, and every time I come home to visit, those feelings spread through me like a nasty wildfire of what I never was or will be.

I have nothing but love for my brother. Based on the title of this, maybe that's not true, but I do not aim to feel ill will about him. I know when you grow up, being the younger sibling, you either look up to them or want to be like them. I fell into wanting to be like him, but I was never able to meet the same expectations.

He was an effortless, charming, handsome boy with a core group of friends who still stand by him today. He met his now wife in high school, and they got to grow up together and, even today, have a bonded love that is infinite. I love his wife, I love him, and I love his successes, travels, and growth, but I have long-term resentment for him because I will never have a life that I have always wished to fit into. I know these feelings are unwarranted and deeply sadden my mom when written on my face, but every time I visit home, I fall back into the girl I was before I left home.

I live in this competition with my brother and me that he doesn't even know exists. That is what makes him the "perfect person" as described; he does not wish to feel anything, he just is, that's a skill set my mom has and never passed on to me. He doesn't feel like he doesn't fit in, he doesn't feel unloveable, or he doesn't feel as if he is never enough. He just lives the life he was given, and it's so easy for him. I wish I could be him. I wish I could just stop trying or caring, and have love find me. I wish being independent all the time could feel like a choice and not feel like a punishment for being difficult to love or understood.

Every time I visit home, my sister-in-law points out how she wishes I still lived here, that I would be constantly around as they begin to build a family. I tell her to have no fear I plan to be in my future nephew's or niece's life, but what I don't tell her is how one of the darkest parts of me can't coexist in the same place that makes her happiest, and that has everything to do with my brother and shadow this town still holds on me.

I can tell you I moved away from home, solo- traveled the world, built a business, and changed as a person. I love deeply and have a thriving curiosity and desire to travel and experience. There is so much about me to love, yet somehow, he so easily found his life partner, and I am still floundering to find the place where I fit, or whom I fit with.

I remember being so proud to bring my college boyfriend home to meet my family. Almost like, look, I found someone who can love me, look, I finally fit into this club I was never a part of. I finally have a person to join me, so I wouldn't be alone while at all our family functions, and even when I don't fit in with my own family, I'd have my own ally. My partners have come and gone and I have had the pleasure of experiencing growth with every one of them, but it is hard to be alone when your brother found the love of his life at fifteen and has been a radiating example of what I dont have.

I often think about how maybe one day I'll have the dream I have dreamt of. A husband to travel with, a husband that my family loves, a first-pick pickleball player, and a card game player. Someone who fits with my family and makes me feel less like an outsider within my own blood. I wonder if I will sit there with them and think back to the wasted years I spent resenting a life I thought I wouldn't have as he sits with me around the family campfire. I wonder if I will be able to smile and know I have someone to grow with while my family grows up and old around me.

I wonder.

But right now, I sit in a room with a loving family, alone. Another family gathering where I haven't found my person, and I go lay in bed to scroll on an app full of other half-filled humans I will probably never match or meet. A part of me still feels like a child who has never grown up because I am always alone. I despise feeling this way, especially here, it consumes so much of my identity. I am so tired of being the person without a person to build a life with, my other half, where my accomplishments and family functions aren't celebrated on my own. I don't want to be the girl who smiles at everyone else's commitment and then laughs at how they should send a good one over my way.

So, no, there is nothing against my brother except for the fact that everything has come so easily to him. Love, success, friends, a place, and a calling on where he belongs. Then there's me, a girl who tries her hardest to be a good, kind, loving, passionate person, but a girl who still doesn't fit anywhere, including the home she was raised in, around a brother who lives and loves so easily.